Advertisement

None

No Headline

A WRITER in the last Crimson complained of the action of the Faculty in refusing to allow English 2 and Greek 3 to be taken two years in succession. The Echo editorially says that he weakens his point by complaining of this action with regard to Greek 3, on the ground that this course is an easy one, in which the whole object desired is attained in one year. The instructor in Greek 3, however, especially encouraged men to take the course again, and so finish reading Herodotus. The course has been shown to be perhaps the most profitable Greek course for the majority of men, - those who wish to attain facility in reading Greek rather than to master technicalities which they must soon forget, unless they expect to teach. Now the Echo's assumption, that this facility is gained in the work of two hours a week for some thirty weeks, implies a facility of acquiring the Greek language which few (probably none) have. Professor White certainly makes no such assumption; for he hopes in future to make the course a three-hour course, and to read the whole of Herodotus in one year, thus doing what those who wished to elect the course, as now given, a second time hoped to accomplish. The only reason that can be seen for the refusal of the Faculty to allow Greek 3 and English 2 to be elected a second time is that it was considered that the men who did so would have an advantage in marks over those who took the courses for the first time. This may possibly be so; but nowadays it is generally conceded that marks are less important than the knowledge which they are supposed to represent. If so, perhaps the Faculty might devise an intricate system of handicapping those who really wish to complete their knowledge of a subject by electing it for two years.

Advertisement
Advertisement